KKM 'Birth, Death, and the Rest of It, In Between'
by tigersilver
Summary: AU, MPREG. It's that time, folks! Yup. The big moment, and how exactly did Yuuri and Wolfram end up here, anyway? Shin Makoku is a certainly a very strange place...


**KKM "Death, Birth and the Rest of it in Between"**

The Maou was terrified. Wolfram was panting and absolutely whiter than a fish belly. Cheri had fainted. Conrad was grim.

Gwendal had been sedated; thank Shinou Gunter was watching over him, or there'd be bloodshed by knitting needles when he awoke, raring to go to the Original King's Castle.

Ulrike was calm, as she should be. She re-checked the level of the wax in the candles and the exact number of beads of perspiration on the Consort's fair brow and quietly called for more hot water, clean towels and an additional basin.

Yuuri growled when he felt the bones in his hand crunch. Wolfram had squeezed it, riding a new wave of pain. The Maou turned a frantic face toward Ulrike, his black eyes begging her to make it cease.

That an eight-hundred-year-and-then-some-old Temple _Virgin_ was to be the Royal Midwife had shocked an already stunned Yuuri all those months ago, brand new in the knowledge that he was to be a father—a father!--and babbling nonsensically about gynecologists and ultrasounds and hospitals. He'd protested it vociferously to his precious spouse, demanding modern medicine and the best of Japanese birthing facilities, by whining continuously as Wolf-chan blithely went about consulting his chosen advisors and then by dramatically increasing his volume when none of the three paid him any attention.

"We _need_ to go back to Earth, Wolf! What if something goes terribly _wrong_?" The very idea made him clutch his stomach and turn green.

"Humph!" Wolfram snorted. "Like _you_ would know, wimp! And stop following me!"

Wolfram had glanced at Yuuri derisively and then promptly ignored him, turning back to the wise council of his mother and Gunter. The conversation then went a little like this: _Yes, yes: Ulrike was his midwife; he'd met with her already as soon as he'd realized; there'd be a few purification rituals beforehand, nothing major; he was not to eat blackberries or stay too long in the bath. Eat properly and get lots of rest. _

"That's _it!_?" howled the Maou, who'd spent a fruitless, panicky morning running after Wolfram, trying desperately to make him sit down and stay put. He ran after him yet again, as the _ad hoc_ hallway conference with Wolfram's chosen 'seconds', as he apparently wished to call them, was over and done with. Wolf was once again on his merry way about his duties.

"That's _all_ there is!" Yuuri shrieked. "You have got to be kidding me, Wolf-chan! We_ need_—"

"Pfft! Wimp!" And once again Yuuri was treated to the glance of derision. Wolf tossed his blond head and harrumphed for emphasis. "It's only a baby, wimp – _that _doesn't make me incapable. Just fat!"

Wolfram threw that last Yuuri's way, barely even bothering to turn back from his goal of an afternoon's hard sparring practice with the soon-to-be-uncle Conrad. Yuuri opened his mouth to protest 'fat'—he wasn't dumb—but his beloved Consort was already poised dangerously at the stop of the stairwell.

Yuuri lunged forward on instinct alone, to prevent the inevitable tumble.

"Besides, it's literally months away, wimp. I'll be fine." Wolfram smiled his glorious smile – the one reserved only for Yuuri – and clattered his boots down the steps, the matter clearly settled in _his_ mind, at least.

"No!" The Maou ran after him again. "No-no-no-no! Damn it, Wolfram, _listen_…!"

_**KKM**_

"Why are you so worked up about this? What are you afraid of?" Wolfram rested the book he was reading on his lap and settled back into the pillows, clearly setting up for the inevitable fight.

His husband sniffed and turned his head away sharply.

"I've told you – and told you_ and_ told you," he said pettishly. "It's your fault if you don't listen, Wolfram. Now, leave me alone. If I don't read this stuff over for Gwendal, he'll rip off my head."

"Pfft!" Wolfram was not impressed by this threat. Gwendal routinely offered to 'take matters in his own hands' now that Wolf was very clearly preggers, and though that arose directly from his understandable frustration with Yuuri's apparent soon-to-be-a-daddy form of brain-death, Wolf knew _his_ big brother would never raise so much as a pinkie towards his adorable Maou. He'd just gnash his teeth and continue to grumble, until the baby was born and hopefully Yuuri returned to 'normal'—or the closest he ever got to that state.

Several uncomfortable months had passed between Wolf and Yuuri. Not that there was anything wrong with Wolfram physically. He felt perfectly fine. His abdomen felt perfectly fine, only larger. It was just that he'd flatly refused to return to Earth for an examination and Yuuri adamantly kept after him, swearing up and down that he wanted the best for his husband and then always following that up by plaintively asking 'why was Wolf-chan so stubborn'? That assertion, coupled with the fact that Yuuri had sent Wolf's personal guard on an extended tour of the Human border (Wolfram's job as Consort); had shipped Wolf's favorite stallion off to the von Bielefeld estate for stud purposes, without mentioning it _at all_ or even asking permission; had talked _his_ big brother Gwendal into removing the whole of Wolf's more strenuous responsibilities (including the training of his own crack squadron of elite Mazoku fire-wielders, a duty Wolfram flat-out _loved_!) and transferring those duties over his _other_ big brother, Conrad; _and_, by far the absolute worst of all, had even dragged their darling Greta into his personal paranoia, so that the poor little girl now followed her six-months pregnant Papa around like a lost puppy, barely letting him out of her sight even to visit the Baths, having been totally convinced by the wimp she would lose him to some horridly vague accident of childbirth: all of these things—these so many things—combined made the now quite visibly more pregnant Consort a very dissatisfied customer indeed.

_No_, he'd thought to himself bitterly more than once, perhaps having Greta on his heels constantly wasn't the worst of it. The worst thing was that Yuuri absolutely refused to touch him, other than to uselessly fuss. There was none of the intimacy a hormonal Wolfram craved and it seemed, in Yuuri's mind at least, that it wasn't even an option, much less the pleasure that sustained them both.

Wolfram was lonely. Knocked up, pestered to death and lonely. He glared at Yuuri, the direct cause of all this.

"I won't have it," the Maou continued, oblivious to Wolfram's worsening mood. "I'm not putting up with it any longer," he stated. "You don't even _think_ about maybe taking it easy; you don't even _care _that you're putting yourself in danger." The Maou closed his own book with an irritated snap. Dark eyes full of silent accusation turned to Wolfram.

"_And_ the baby – _our_ baby."

Wolfram drew in his breath with an audible hiss, white fingers crushing the reinforced leather-bound spine of his unfortunate novel. The Maou ignored this act and all the other warning signs of an imminent explosion: the Frown, the Pout and the Huffing Noises.

"Well, if _you_ won't, _I_ will, Wolfram," Yuuri promised, his glare power for once surpassing his husband's. "I've had enough of you treating this like it was all some big joke. I talked to Shori yesterday and we have an Earth Mazoku doctor all lined up, ready to take a good look at you. We're going back tomorrow morning and you're going to get checked out for real this time by real doctors and I don't want to hear one single word from you against it, Wolf-chan – and that _is _an Order!"

"You…you _idiot_!"

The Maou's Consort snatched the pulp romance novel from Francia from his lap and threw it – with extreme force, so that it slammed into the wall opposite, denting the stone facing, and then slid down to the floor, pages crumpled and torn. It promptly burst into flame.

"H-hey—!" Yuuri tried to point out that open fires in the bedroom weren't a terribly good idea, safety-wise, but Wolfram's anger was rolling toward him like a dreadnought, gun turrets spitting out deadly words.

"You _fool_! How dare you imply that I don't take care of this child!" Wolf gathered his bulging pink nightgown up and slammed his bare feet on the floor in counterpoint, hauling his ungainly mass to totter above his swollen ankles. He'd lost all his natural creamy colouring, except for two high spots of scarlet gracing his cheekbones, and his voice was so very taut and razor-sharp vicious, Yuuri instantly hunched his shoulders to get out of the way.

"What kind of parent do you think I am?" Wolfram demanded, his green eyes narrow slits of molten emerald. "Tell me, Yuuri, do you even trust me with _Greta_ at this point?"

"No!" Yuuri began. "Wait!"

"I'm not finished." Wolfram was implacable.

"B-But!"

Wolf stomped over to the door to the _en suite_ bathroom as if he'd meant to go in that direction in the first place. In reality, he'd been intending to depart the Royal Chambers in a Royal Huff and seek out the company of his mother for a nice round of palliative sobbing, but his bladder was painfully over-full and the baby was leaning on it mightily. He turned instead, sneering, hand twisting hard on the doorknob, his glorious gaze incandescent with fury, and had just enough time left to spit one last challenge at Yuuri before he had to go pee.

"Is that _all_ I am to you, Shibuya Yuuri: a baby carrier? Don't you care about _my_ life and what _I_ might want? Or is it all about _you_, Your Idiotic Majesty – just like it always is!"

The door rattled on its hinges as Wolf shut it firmly behind him. The Maou roared at the unfairness of it all, blue sparks flying up from his black hair as he vaulted out of bed and slammed his shoulder into the bathroom door, battering it like there was no tomorrow.

He was no longer Yuuri-the-Dithering-Daddy-to-Be; he was _**MAOU**_!

"**Woolfffraam**!"

Yuuri ripped the door right off its frame a moment later, which only served to make his Consort angrier.

_**KKM**_

Wolf did go to Japan, after all. Though not the next day. Another month passed, filled with caustic sniping and arctic silences and the occasional threat to go sleep in newly redecorated Nursery, until Yuuri finally broke down and told him why he was being such an asswipe.

"My mom, her sister…my aunt Sakura, she—"

Yuuri had his black head buried in Wolfram's rapidly disappearing lap, pressed up close to the bulge of Wolf's abdomen. He'd cornered his husband finally in the South-East Library and had taken advantage of the fact that Wolf-chan now moved somewhat more slowly than he had just a month before.

"Died."

"Oh…_Yuuri._" Wolfram sighed and allowed his fingers to tangle in the dark locks spread over his blue velvet paternity tunic. His strained and weary face softened with instant sympathy…and some curiosity. They'd ended up this way only because Yuuri had literally gone down on his knees, begging for forgiveness in his delightfully wimpy way. Wolfram had given in immediately, his hands trembling under Yuuri's fevered kisses, more than glad to call it quits on the ongoing Cold War.

"How, Yuuri?" Wolf kept his voice low, and strained his ears to hear his beloved's shaky whisper. The wimp wasn't particular coherent when he was all snotty, not that he'd been particularly emotionally stable for the previous seven months. But, still…

Yuuri loved him, Wolf knew. That was all that ultimately mattered.

The Maou sniffed miserably and mumbled into Wolf's greatly altered belly button.

"Um, well, my mom said my aunt—her sister--got married really young. _Too_ young. She was pregnant very soon after she married my uncle – and it all went wrong, somehow. With the baby and all."

"Wrong?"

"She bled a lot, I think, and she wasn't supposed to, so they made her stay in bed, to try to save the baby. My uncle's the head of this big corporation in Tokyo; he's really rich – I guess the baby was supposed to be his heir for the company or something."

"Like with us, Yuuri?" Wolfram struggled to find parallels between Japanese culture and the way they did things in Shin Mazoku. The closest he could come was the oft-times passed-on title of 'Maou'. It was true that Shinou had chosen many of the previous Kings, but sometimes the Crown was simply handed off the next generation, as was the case with the titles of the nobility.

"Well…maybe. I don't know – it doesn't matter, does it?" The current Maou looked up, to find melting green eyes fixed on him, and smiled ruefully, shrugging. "I mean, we don't_ have_ to have more kids just for Shin Makoku, right? We've got one already and if Shinou doesn't like it, he can go pound sand."

"Yuuri!" Wolfram gasped—but then he had to smile. He knew full well Shinou wasn't particularly worried about matters of succession at the moment, nor would he be for quite a few centuries to come.

Yuuri laid his head back down in Wolf-chan's lap and slid his arms around his Consort's very swollen middle, seeking comfort in touch. Wolfram, however, had stiffened and gone papery white, stricken cold by a sudden and truly shattering thought.

"We've got Greta – that's all we need," Yuuri was saying, as he leaned forward to peck the bulge, even as his words denied the need for its existence. "We don't absolutely _have_ to have an another baby."

Wolfram's hands clenched into fists that shook uncontrollably, palsied with the strength of his fear.

"You're…you're saying you don't _want_ this?" A thin note of hysteria lay under Wolfram's gruff question. "This—_our_—baby?"

Yuuri snorted his surprise, tightening his grip, hard enough to make Wolfram gasp and wriggle; firmly enough to grab his attention back from whatever vision had made his eyes go wide and blind.

"_No_!…No, Wolf-chan, all I'm saying is I don't want you in danger – I want you safe, here with me. Always."

The layer of solid uncompromising muscle under the layers of velvet and silk – and softer-than-that skin – relaxed infinitesimally. Wolfram breathed out. He felt as though he hadn't breathed normally for quite some time; he was light-headed with relief.

"…Oh. Good." He swallowed and said it again, faintly. "Good."

"_Always_," Yuuri repeated, nestling his head against Wolf's small belly. "I don't need anything other than that, Wolf. Just you."

Wolfram shivered, overcome by the weighty tone of Yuuri's low voice and the emotions swelling up his throat. He thrust his fingers through Yuuri's wild black hair again and held on tight. His world had abruptly spun off balance and then righted itself, just as sharply, and he was afraid, as he'd been afraid for the whole of the last gut-wrenching month, of saying anything even vaguely incendiary. Anything, that was, that might affect their newly rediscovered peace-of-mind and cause him to lose his Yuuri altogether. Never mid the fact that Yuuri had just given him the fright of his young life and he was incredibly angry about that!

The Maou—the terminally idiotic Maou--pressed his lips against Wolfram's swollen stomach. His hands splayed around his Consort's broadening hips, holding on with a firmness born of anguish yet unrelieved. Wolfram cocked his head, bracing himself for the rest of the story. Eventually, he knew, Yuuri would tell him everything, no matter how awful he thought it, just as he always did.

"I'm afraid," Yuuri whispered, finally. "I'm so frightened, Wolf-chan. In my world, men don't have babies. I wouldn't have to worry about that, at least, Wolfram. I-I worry enough as it is, every time you ride out of those gates, every time you're assigned to patrol, or you're racing about on that stupid horse of yours with your soldiers. I can't lose you, you know that? I just can't. My--my aunt died anyway, even with everything my uncle did—all the specialists he brought in, all the nurses and the doctors and the machines beeping and blinking, trying to keep her alive, trying to save her and their child. I can't—I don't want to be like that, Wolf-chan—without you--"

"Yuuri!"

"'Cause you're my everything, Wolf, and I _can't_ lose you."

"You don't have to worry about that, Yuuri," Wolf rushed in--flattered, frightened; but incredibly relieved all the same, for this was all so very _stupid_!--throwing his arms about Yuuri's shoulders and pressing his velvet clothed bulk against him in an effort to comfort him; draw his dumb, anxious wimp of a husband well away from the precipice of unreasoning fear.

This was not Japan and Wolfram was most emphatically _not_ a Human.

"I'll be fine," he told Yuuri confidently, striving for a no-nonsense tone, one that brooked no doubt. "We Mazoku have been doing this for centuries. Men give birth all the time; more than you know, Yuuri. So, you've nothing to worry about, wimp, and Ulrike is the absolute best midwife that there is, period. So stop it, already, you ninny. You're being an idiot."

"…Yeah, I know." The Maou chuckled dryly, without humor, shifting in Wolf's arms. "Or my head knows, but everything else doesn't. I don't trust it, I guess, the magic – I want_ real_ doctors and_ real_ nurses and all those instruments they use…the stuff that blinks and beeps--everything…if _you_ need it, I want it there, ready to go. I want both, Wolf. I want to be _sure_."

"Look, Yuuri," Wolf started, suddenly impatient. "There's really no need for this nonsense—"

Yuuri rose up on his knees suddenly, forcing his way in-between Wolf's thighs, sliding his hands up to capture Wolf's throat and then his firm jaw, so that he could angle his dark head toward the lovely, worried face and grind his unhappy mouth against the soft, oft-nibbled lips of his husband, and ultimately bury his nose in the fragrant mass of golden hair. Wolfram moaned, and closed his eyes as Yuuri kissed the living daylights out of him.

"You're so small," the Maou muttered, mouth moving lightly across his beloved flushed features. "So fragile-looking, even if you say you're made of steel. Even if I know you're nearly indestructible; even if you're almost as big as me and stronger and tougher and all that other crap."

"Yuuri!"

Yuuri brought his lips close to his lover's ear, blowing in it softly, so that Wolfram shuddered helplessly and moaned again, the faint rill of anger already dissipated. Something else grew, an unbidden and blatantly lustful urge that roared through Wolf's spinning head and nearly blocked out Yuuri's next words altogether. He was abruptly mad with desire; insanely, hormonally horny and it was all he could do to give Yuuri even a modicum of his attention.

"So dear to me, I can't stand it," the black-haired man was growling, "and if you leave me, I'm not going to make it."

"Yuuri, I told you already—" Wolfram shook off the inappropriate lust and clutched at Yuuri's shoulders, trying to draw him closer. "There's nothing to worry about, wimp. Everything will be fine, totally fine. I may kill you for what you've done to my body, Yuuri, but that's the only bloodshed I see in the future. So, shut up already, wimp. It. Will. Be. Fine. Trust me."

Yuuri swallowed hard, throat clogging with fresh tears. He wasn't a crybaby; had never been one to snivel—unless it was called for, like if he was being threatened by say, Soushu or something else massively evil, and not so much then, either—so he held Wolfram to him gingerly, as if the blonde were wrought of fine crystal, careful now to clasp him loosely, hands cautious against the layers of cloth, and manfully swallowed back the insidious weakness affecting his tear ducts. His husband had to work to hear Yuuri's next revelation, so softly were the words breathed into his hair.

"I'm afraid to touch you, Wolf-chan – maybe I'll hurt you. I know it's stupid but maybe, just maybe, you'll die if I do, just like my aunt."

"…Yuuri?" Wolfram blinked rapidly, valiantly attempting to assimilate this. They'd never pulled punches, he and Yuuri. Each one always gave as good as he got.

"And I miss you so much," Yuuri muttered, his fingers tightening. "I'm so tired of being afraid to touch you, Wolf; so tired. S-so I want you to do me this favor—go back with me and--"

"I'll go."

Yuuri's tears dripped on his collarbone. The idiot had likely smeared them into his newly washed hair. Wolfram bore them like a proud badge. He sat up straight and snagged Yuuri's chin firmly, hauling the Maou 'round to face him.

"I'll go to Japan. Whenever you want, so stop asking. And I'll put up with those machines that make unnatural noises and the crowds of people who constantly trail after you and the horrible odours and even Mama-chan and Honorary Elder Brother fussing after me every single solitary second, Yuuri. I'll even submit to being poked and prodded by total strangers and riding in those evil metal contraptions of yours—if, and only if, you promise to cease this confounded worrying of yours, wimp. Now, do we have a deal?"

Wolfram gave Yuuri's chin a little shake for good measure, rattling his teeth in his head.

For the first time in a very long time, a true smile dawned on the Maou's damp, reddened face. He blinked those big, dark, pansy-velvet eyes of his at Wolfram slowly and nearly had him coming in his straining, stretchy paternity trousers right then and there.

"Yuuri!"

"R-really?"

"_Yes_. I'll go," Wolf repeated, through clenched teeth. "Now, _kiss me_, you ass!"

**~KKM~**

Everything was then hunky-dory and 'A-okay', as Yuuri put it, much to Wolf's consternation. He barely understood Yuuri's Japanese references; to add odd Americanisms to the mix was asking rather a lot, he felt.

In any case, Yuuri reluctantly bowed down to the inevitable, after they paid their visit to the doctor Shori had appointed as acceptable for examining the Royal person of his brother-in-law and his own soon-to-be-born niece or nephew. Whatever Ulrike had been advising all along must be working, Yuuri learned, 'cause his husband was in the utter pink of health.

It gave the young man time to enjoy the rest of Wolfram's first pregnancy, for which he was ever grateful. Yuuri went miles and leagues and entire nations out of his way to spoil Wolf rotten, importing strange foods for irrational cravings and the finest of masseuses to ease out the inevitable cramps and special bath salts to soothe tension and soreness—not to mention everything and anything any one single baby could ever possibly want or need. The Royal Nursery overflowed with stuff. Wolfram glowed.

As for Wolfram, the hard plastic wand that pressed against his growing belly had been a breakthrough – he could see their child for the first time. This was a miracle, better even than the Earth doctor telling Yuuri very seriously that intercourse was fine for a while longer.

And so the time of patient waiting passed happily, a harbinger of things to come, and they enjoyed every moment of it, discovering new ways to love each other, new ways to give pleasure.

Until just now, when Wolfram had just finished up a monumental rant on how he hated and abhorred his beloved husband—the selfish bastard--more than anything else in the world – useless, irresponsible, wimpy idiot that Yuuri was and would always be. Wolfram was now laying exhausted against the mound of sweat-soaked white pillows, his breath still stertorous, his eyes blank with pain. Wolfram realized full well he was not best pleased with this turn of events called 'labour'; knowing his face was creased, smeared with unwilling tears of pain and patched with an ugly flush, that his bright hair was lank, his manly privates exposed to countless people who had absolutely no business being there in the first place.

Wolfram wanted only Yuuri, the blackguard bastardy asshole that had done this to him – and maybe Ulrike, who was _supposed_ to be there. That was it and all, damn it. He muttered something to that effect, but no one was paying him sufficient attention; their eyes were all on his flinching abdomen.

And the birth itself was a difficult one, with the baby turned utterly the wrong way and Wolfram grunting and whimpering with constant agony. It got so that poor Yuuri was glad to be screamed at, because that meant Wolf felt well enough to scream. And it all went on and on, till Yuuri was convinced this dismal night of childbirth would never, ever end.

Until the 13th hour tolled on the Big Bell in the Original King's Castle's clock tower, when Ulrike finally ordered that new candles be lit by the waiting acolytes and the linens be freshened. There was a huge bustle and then everything was finally ready and waiting for the Big Moment; a fainting Cheri had been carried out by a weary, war-worn Conrad long ago. It was only the major players left on stage to get the job done.

"And….please push now, Your Highness. Bear down and hold steady, till I signal for you to stop." Ulrike took up position at Wolfram's feet. Yuuri hunkered down and hoped that the bones in his hand would recover—some day.

Wolfram screwed his blotchy face up. His short nails bit down on Yuuri's palm as he exerted pressure against the ungainly lump in his belly, grunting. Mazoku men gave birth just like Mazoku women; maryoku was responsible for a great many things and bearbee pollen for yet more. Yuuri knew enough now, at least, to stop asking stupid questions about the process.

And Wolfram bore down, gritting his perfectly straight teeth in a soundless snarl.

"Like this?" he gasped.

"Harder, please, next time."

"You know, Yuuri, I really hate you." Wolfram struggled to breathe; to stay conscious, for that matter. Gods! How he absolutely _hated_ the wimp!

Yuuri grinned and sobbed and gripped Wolf's hand so hard they both winced, breathing in and out with him, their eyes trained on Ulrike.

"I love you, too, Wolf-chan," Yuuri mumbled. "I'm with you, okay?"

"And again…now!" Ulrike ordered, her eyes fixed on what was happening under the sheet tented over Wolf's bent knees.

"Arrggh!" The sound got away from him, and that infuriated Wolf to no end. He was no wimp, damn it! Not _him_!

"Good!" Yuuri congratulated him. Wolfram glared.

"I hate you."

"Okay," Yuuri answered, quite reasonably in the circumstances. "Now just do that pushing thing again, Honey, alright? When Ulrike says so, I mean."

"_Hate. You_."

"Very good, Your Highness," the ancient Maiden smiled. "Just like that…_now_!"

"Oh-gods-Yuuri-I-hate-you! _Aaaahhh_!" Wolfram's entire body—the body that was his tool, his weapon, his pride—hated _him_, or so it seemed. It ached, and trembled, and felt as though it were being turned inside out and backwards, and he'd never once felt pain like this—

"And again!" he was commanded. Wolf pushed, groaning.

"Beautiful, Wolf-chan! Keep it up!" Yuuri was his cheerleader, and Wolf despised being hustled and petted and attempted to tell the wimp so—but he simply had to push. NOW.

"Now!" Ulrike ordered. "_Now_, Your Highness!"

"Reallyreallyhateyou! Unngghh!" And Wolf could only think about how he loved that black hair and those depthless dark eyes staring so stupidly at him--and their baby just had to have those precious traits, though he'd love the baby anyway, if it had red hair and brown eyes, or three heads or whatever--despite the blasted bastard who'd gotten him up the duff, and—_push_! Push!

"And…again! One more time, Your Highness—almost here!"

"…!"

It was a soundless scream. For his part, Yuuri despised it and was nearly to the point of demanding that Ulrike put a stop this idiocy, except that it seemed to be—_to be working_! Gods! Ulrike had a tiny squalling red ball in her hands!

It was a baby! _A baby_!

"Oh!" Yuuri felt his face falling into a silly grin, one that he'd probably be sporting for quite some time. He ached to hold the squirmy creature but that honor belonged indubitably to his chosen mate. "Oh, _wow_!"

"…Oh, sheesh, Yuuri, you asshole!" Wolfram's blazing, red-rimmed eyes finally opened, a moment after he closed his jaw with a decided snap. He stared at Yuuri accusingly, focusing on the rock that kept him steady all through that endless agony, still unaware that his final effort had paid off.

There was a tiny sniffling noise. Ulrike was busy with a sheet of white cloth, smiling down at her enfolding arms like a loony. The other Maidens were cooing, drawing near as if compelled.

"_You'd_ better be the one to give birth next time, Yuuri, as I'm sure as Shinou made little green kumquats _not ever _going to do this, _not ever_—!" Wolf went on, taking a deep breath so he could harangue Yuuri properly, now that there was a break in the action and he could think at all.

The snuffle turned into a snort—and then a high, thin cry. Wolfram's jaw dropped again, his chin smacking into his collarbone.

"Wolf-chan." Yuuri's voice was very gentle, as if he were afraid of startling some shy forest creature. He was looking towards Ulrike and his black eyes were shiny and huge with some emotion. "Wolf-chan, look."

Wolfram gingerly turned his head and directed his gaze down to his feet, drawn by another ittybitty snuffle and the flail of a minute arm.

"Yuuri! _Yuuri!_"

Wolfram's green eyes were always beautiful, Yuuri thought, but never more so than now. He was an angel, a god, an ethereal being from some exalted plane, covered in blood and a sweat-stained nightgown, his fair hair plastered to his well-shaped head with perspiration, tear tracks marring his skin.

A quick snip of wicked looking scissors and another careful swipe with a white silk cloth and then Wolfram was holding his second child, safe and warm in his arms, with Yuuri's arms wrapped like a blanket 'round the both of them. He barely noticed the business of afterbirth or Ulrike's work at making him presentable. His eyes were only on their newborn, the sharp emerald misty and soft and hazy with an incredible welling of love.

And so it was that Yuuri, the Maou, bore their next child, true to His Highness the Royal Consort's strident vow. Apparently Shoma-san had fudged certain information about Yuuri's genetic record on Yuuri's school physicals and, of course, the Maou was ever known for being a little oblivious, though an awfully nice guy, very laid back, and thus he even never noticed he was venturing into the realms of weirdness until it actually happened. And it _could _happen, and it _did_, because Yuuri was the Demon King and the Greatest Maou Ever. And things like that happened in Shin Makoku all the time, really.

And then—naturally--his nervous, jumpy, highly overly-protective and constantly anxious Consort allowed him to do pretty much nothing but rest and eat during the whole of his pregnancy and the tables, as they say, were effectively turned.

END


End file.
